German Chancellor Angela Merkel, top candidate of the Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU) for the upcoming general elections, gestures as she speaks during an election rally in Regensburg, Germany, September 18, 2017. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

Michael Bastasch

2:50 PM 09/22/2017

A recent report claims Germany is not on track to meet its goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2020, despite the country spending billions on green energy subsidies.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces election on Sunday, and even though she’s expected to win, the inconvenient report from the group Agora Energiewende about her government’s global warming goals probably won’t do her any favors.

But don’t expect German Chancellor Angela Merkel to back down. In fact, she said a couple days ago her government would “find ways to get to the 2020 climate target,” which included the continued shut down of coal-fired power plants.

“I doubt that much will change in Germany in the short term,” Benny Peiser, director of the U.K.-based Global Warming Policy Foundation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The “Energiewende” is only one part of Germany’s plan to decarbonize its economy. Through Energiewende, Germany hopes to move away from fossil fuels, especially coal, towards solar and wind power.

Agora Energiewende reported the missed emissions target “won’t be a near miss but a booming failure,” in a recent report. Coal generated 40 percent of Germany’s electricity in 2016 while wind and solar supplied much less.

“The green energy fiasco, however, is not an election issue at all — not least because there is an all-party consensus on what may eventually turn out to be one of Angela Merkel’s most disastrous policy decisions,” Peiser said.

German began subsidizing green energy source in earnest in 2011 after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant meltdown. Merkel began an aggressive shift towards solar and wind power to replace its nuclear plants.

But it’s cost them.

Germany has spent $780 billion in recent decades, Bloomberg reported, and it’s not enough to get them toward their national goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2020.

“We expect Energiewende cost to fall starting from early 2020 – renewable power from newly build wind and solar is now the most cheapest power in Germany,” Christoph Podewils, Agora’s communications director, told TheDCNF.

“Of course we have lot of challenges – market design, regulation, grid expansion and enhancements, acceptance, de-carbonising of heating and transport – but cost is no issue anymore,” Christoph said.

However, average Germans are feeling the pain. Electricity costs are about three times higher than in the U.S., driven mostly by increases in energy taxes to pay for green energy. Heat is so expensive it’s called “the second rent.”

German industry, on the other hand, is expempt from green energy laws out of fear they would no longer be competitive. That’s shifted more of the cost onto residents and smaller businesses.

German emissions are down 27 percent from 1990 levels, which is ahead of other European countries, but still behind what they need to meet their goal.

Emissions have come down all while coal plants have thrive. Coal, especially lignite, is a cheap source of fuel in Germany that’s competitively subsidized green energy sources. Coal is also a more reliable energy source since it doesn’t rely on the sun and wind.

“Germany’s CO2 emissions in the electricity sector haven’t decreased since 1995,” Peiser said. “The country is almost certain to fail its climate targets by 2020 by a wide margin.”

“All that renewables have achieved is to replace zero-carbon nuclear and low-carbon gas power generation while coal power generation is increasingly competitive and thriving,” he said.

Public Broadcasting System (USA) will show a minute-by-minute chronicle of the 2011 nuclear meltdown crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, at 3pm CST (USA) today, and also later at midnight CST.

Based on the latest pre-election polls, the Greens are imploding and will not factor in as a possible coalition partner any longer, either at the state the federal level. Fact is Merkel killed nuclear in order to sideswipe de Greens in a state election [Hesse] and Fukushima was a convenient excuse.

That big manufacturers are exempt from the energy laws isn’t going to do them any good unless they can also generate the energy necessary to function when Merkel finally manages to shut down the coal power plants. We know that solar/wind won’t be near enough.

If you know the numbers, you also know that coal usage for electricity is climbing in Germany. In addition ‘biomass’ – ie clearcutting eastern Europe for power is horrendously inefficient and polluting, including huge carbon emissions. The Germans don’t count the emissions from biomass in the ‘new accounting’. Then there is biodiesel – which means clearing huge swaths of rainforest so that Merkel can ‘lower’ the carbon emissions even more. Then there are all the extra transmission wires, thousands of turbines spoiling the landscape – roads constructed to get to them, etc. Green energy is an environmental disaster.

As for cost: In every market I have studied, wind + solar comes in at about $1/kWh. Germany – case in point, 70% of power is from coal, nuclear, etc at about $0.15 per kWh, then add in 30% of $1 to get the German price of $0.45 / kWh.

There is no excuse for this, but I guess when you’re on a bender like Merkel is, it doesn’t matter. Someone should ask her how many people in East Berlin and East Germany froze to death when the heat was shut off or simply never turned on.

Could be funny. We here northwards have a colder climate still. And icebreakers, because all our harbors freeze regularly. So I’ll enjoy my nuclear heating next winter and have a smug smile at Germany, which is basing future energy use on Russian gas. Not a wise move, using Russian, highly polical gas. It may stop flowing in a flash of Putin’s mood. Merkel better prepare not to step on Russian feet, should they keep warm.

Freeze to death is a hyperbole though. They die because cold makes heart work too much and a stroke ensues I guess. But you are correct cold kills a lot of people, more than the EU is willing to admit in energy discussion.

It’s a metaphor, you know. If, in fact, someone is exposed to temperatures so low that they nearly freeze instantly, with no tissue damage (and this has happened, however rare it may be), then s/he can be revived. But it has to be sudden exposure. Excessive cold and heat will both kill people. Heat stroke is a killer. But with cold, water will form crystals in the blood, which impede blood flow, a reason that warming your hands and feet after exposure to extreme cold is very, very painful.
Also, in both cold and heat-related deaths, part of the problem is dehydration. Even in extreme cold, you will lose moisture to the atmosphere unless you’re wearing a moisture block like skin lotion. The very thing that cools us in hot weather will kill us in cold weather.

Below is the subject article posted by Pierre Gosselin, originally from German media FOCUS.

I find Pierre to be honest and reliable and I recommend his website NoTricksZone.com

The wording of the FOCUS article is imprecise, which is why I suggest that Excess Winter Mortality should be a reasonable unit of measurement.

Here is a 2002 article that reports Excess Winter Mortality Rates in Europe for the period 1988-1997. It would be interesting to update these statistics to determine if Excess Winter Mortality Rates have increased in the UK and Germany, for example, as energy costs have increased.

The coefficient of seasonal variation in mortality CSVM is calculated using the following formula, which acts as a lower bound estimate of seasonal mortality:
CSVM=[total deaths (Dec+Jan+Feb+Mar)]–[total deaths (Apr+May+Jun+Jul)+total deaths (Aug+Sep+Oct+Nov)/2]
all divided by [total deaths (Apr+May+Jun+Jul)+total deaths (Aug+Sep+Oct+Nov)/2].

My more recent analysis shows that Excess Winter Mortality in the UK ranges from about 25, 000 to 50,000 per year, in the USA about 100,000 per year, and in Canada about 5000 to 10,000 per year. Excess Winter Mortality Rates in the UK are about twice those of Canada and the USA. This high death rate in the UK should be a cause for concern.
“Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather”
by Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae, 4 September 2015https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf

IF Excess Winter Mortality Rates in Germany have increased significantly from the 0.11 rate depicted for the decade 1988-1997, then there should also be considerable concern.

One of the sickest things about Europe and its disconnected leaders is that often it takes a full-scale disaster to happen before policy gets corrected. Often the scale of the death and devastation becomes known only after the clean-up crews have come in and sifted through the rubble. Think, for example, of Nazism, the Holocaust – or Soviet communism.
In the above named examples the true scale of devastation left behind became clear only after the drunk-on-ideology tyrants were defeated and their legacy finally put in the spotlight.
FOCUS now cites a documentary film which is set to be broadcast this evening on European television station ARTE. The documentary presents how Europe’s electricity prices are spiraling out of control, and the horrible consequences this is having on the continent’s citizens.

40,000 dead from power being shut off

The situation, we are discovering, is far more disturbing than even the earlier worst case scenarios every imagined. FOCUS reports (emphasis added):
In 2014 in Europe there were about 40,000 winter deaths because millions of people were unable to pay for their electric bills – the so-called energy poverty currently impacts about ten percent of all Europeans. In the past 8 years the price of electricity in Europe has climbed by an average of 42 percent.”

7 million German households in energy poverty

FOCUS writes that the poor are the real victims of “socialist” Europe’s clean energy drive. In Bulgaria people see half of their income gobbled up by energy costs alone. In Spain 28 percent of the citizens live in “energy poverty”. In Germany, FOCUS writes, 7 million households are considered to be living in “energy poverty”.

Rubbish. Nobody in Germany freezes to death (Except drunkards on the way home). For People without income there is normal social support plus actual house rent pus heating expenses. (Hartz4 plus Wohngeld plus Heizkostenzuschuss).

The problem is with low and medium income receivers. Electricity prices have tripled since 2000.

“It is the obligation of responsible, competent professionals to blow-the-whistle on this (global warming) sc@m, and to encourage the availability of cheap, reliable, abundant energy systems for humanity. This is especially true for the elderly and the poor worldwide, and for the struggling peoples of the developing world.”

The elderly and the poor in the United Kingdom, Germany and other countries are suffering increased winter deaths due to high energy costs. In the UK, this human disaster is called “Heat or Eat”.

The Excess Winter Mortality Rate in Britain is much higher than that in Canada. Canada has a population of about 35 million and the UK about 65 million, but Excess Winter Mortality in Canada is about 5000 to 10,000 per year, and in the UK it is 25,000 to 50,000 per year.

Canada and the UK have genetically similar populations and similar health care systems. Canada tends to be colder but mostly drier than the UK. However, Canada generally has much lower energy costs and better-insulated housing and probably better central heating systems, on average. This suggests that adaptation to winter and low energy costs are significant drivers of lower Winter Mortality rates.

Imagine IF the UK had competent politicians in the past several decades instead of warmist imbeciles. Instead of spending billions on green energy debacles, they could have spent the funds on improving home insulation and central heating, and encouraged fracking of shales to reduce natural gas prices., and a whole lot of grannies and grandpa’s would still be alive for their grandchildren.

Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple.

When politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer and die.

“Life expectancy rises ‘grinding to halt’ in England”
BBC, 18 July 2017http://www.bbc.com/news/health-40608256
Rising rates of life expectancy are grinding to a halt in England after more than 100 years of continuous progress, says a leading health expert.

naturbaumeister.I have old relatives in the UK and every winter they and their friends, who also have”normal social support plus actual house rent (minus heating expenses I admit)” all adhere to the philosophy of ”Eat or heat”.

” a number as high as 40,000 people froze to death ”
I would highly recommend checking these numbers in detail. Germany is one of the richest countries in the world. We have a social system that also provides people without income so that they neither starve nor freeze to death. It is likely that more people are frozen in the US than in Germany based on the population.

Heck, the table in the second link above says we here in Wisconsin even top Germany in sunshine hours. Judging from the lack of them from my vantage point, solar panels here in Wisconsin appear to be about as popular as the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings.

Solar power is ridiculous in highish northern latitude countries, especially those that tend to be cloudy due to weather fronts.

On average Germany may receive about 1650 hours of sunshine annually, so around 140 hours per month. However, in the winter months when power/energy is most needed, it is more cloudy and there are few sunshine hours a day such that the average sunshine hours per month is down to around 50, ie., less than 2 hours per day!

Further, in the winter months, the grazing angle is low, so that the effective energy received per hour is considerably less than when the sun is higher in the sky in the summer months. But Germany does not require aircon in the summer so midday summer performance is not an important factor.

Any school child of around 12 to 13 years old ought to know and understand why solar power is not effective in a country like German (or the UK or other similarly located northern latitude country).

Griffy Dude: Your persistence at this website is noteworthy, but it’s really getting to the point where you should qualify to be fitted out for a clown suit. I should see if I can find a red nose for you to wear.

Germany has had little success since around 2007/8 reducing its CO2 emissions since it has come up against the buffer. Wind and solar do not significantly reduce CO2 emissions because of the need for backup generation, and that backup generation tends to be mainly from coal and gas. More significantly, the backup generation is provided from generators working in ramp up/ramp down mode which is very inefficient, since much fuel (and hence additional CO2) is used overcoming inertia.

The sum of 800billion USD seems enormous even for a fabulously rich country like Germany .
The article did not make clear, to me at least, where the money came from or where it went .
Perhaps Griff , who always seems to have a finger on the German pulse , could enlighten us and perhaps explain the apparent incongruity :-
“We expect Energiewende cost to fall starting from early 2020 – renewable power from newly build wind and solar is now the most cheapest power in Germany,” Christoph Podewils, Agora’s communications director, told TheDCNF.
and:
“However, average Germans are feeling the pain. Electricity costs are about three times higher than in the U.S., driven mostly by increases in energy taxes to pay for green energy. Heat is so expensive it’s called “the second rent.”

In Germany there are more than 350,000 households without electricity, because they can not pay their electricity bill. Between 6 and 7 million households receive annually threats of a current barrier. The majority of them then pay their arrears, but probably on credit. And that Germany is an enormously rich country, is also a fable. Germany is in the rear midfield among the homeowners in the EU. More money in their bank-account owns even the Greeks. And many other EU-Countrys. It is a political industry in co-operation with the press, which constantly gives Germans and foreigners the impression how immeasurably rich Germany is. However, the upper 10% of the population is getting better and better, while the remaining 90% have less and less. The gap between these percentage populations has never been as high as it is today. One thing one must leave the Germans, however, a poor German pensioner couple will bite their tongue rather than admit how poorly the standard of life of many retirees is. The original Germans are very proud in this respect. As a result, migrants in Germany will provide far better from social help.
However, this state of affairs will not last forever, too much the gap between the rich and the poor grows annually. And then one wonders about social unrest in Germany. As one has once wondered between WW I and II.

You really have to ponder the true idiocy of German policy. They spent $800 billion to ensure that Germans pay three times more than Americans do for energy, while continuing to emit more CO2.

The US, meanwhile, let the private sector pursue fracking (though Obama tried to ban it on federal lands) and it created $3.5 trillion of new wealth between 2012 and 2014, turned the US into a net energy exporter, lowered pump prices AND helped the US lower CO2 emissions every year.

Germany has been milking the entire eu to keep their export economy going. They let the poor and failing economies in the eu keep the euro down to help Germanies export market, but this doesn’t allow for the depressed economies to take advantage of a lower currency to rebuild their export markets thus keeping them from being able to rebound. Germany is just a selfish and preditury as it ever was, they in essence won they war they lost by controlling the eu.

What they have done is frozen cleaner gas generation out of the market. There burning of coal is almost unchanged and they still have 20GW of the dirtiest lignite generation which for a country which prides itself on going green is a joke. It’s clearly shown in wikipedia just look at the fossil fuel graphhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany
You can also pick any real actual published energy data source you like and the coal generation has remained almost flatlined since 1990.

All that has really happened is the percentage has dropped as a number because all the increase has been done by renewables. They have managed to ban coal exports and some of the green groups attach that as a decrease in use to create a fake view the Germany coal use has dropped. That is the strange situation they have got themselves in that they are now more reliant on coal than they have ever been.

Yet they are Griffs like most greens favourite poster child and I just don’t get why. The numbers don’t lie and there is a massive discord between what Germany says it’s doing and what is actually happening.

I don’t live in Germany and I don’t know what is happening on the ground but if you look at the numbers there isn’t a lot of progress.

The great irony is that in Japan 10,000 were killed by the tsunami but none died from radiation poison, not even the volunteers who went in to do the clean-up. I often find it curious that no one ever mentions the many submarines, aircraft carriers, etc. that have been sailing the world for decades with no serious problems (except the one Russian sub). Pretty amazing safety record. Also France has dozens of nuclear power plants and no major problems to date.

“These kinds of illnesses… are characteristic of people who’ve been exposed to radiation… We’ve seen them at Chernobyl, they are not difficult to prove… We know Tepco… misrepresented the levels of radiation these sailors were exposed to… The number is more than 110… we now have 225 injured sailors — 21, 22, 23, 25-year-olds. A population that you don’t usually find cancers such as leukemia, testicular cancers, uterine cancers, thyroid cancers. We also have cancers so rare only 0.001% of people have experienced it. Yet we know that radiation causes these kinds of cancers… Information that initially came out was totally incorrect… We’re now beginning to see the real data that’s revealing the exact kind of exposures — the kind of toxic soup — that these sailors were literally sailing through for days.”

I have no idea as to the extent of illness nor the evidential link, but the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ought to give particular insight to the exposure to after the event nuclear fallout.

One would imagine that the surviving population were exposed to high levels of nuclear contaminants for many many years after the bombings, so the long term medical history of the survivors would be very insightful. Per wikipedia:

In 1985, Johns Hopkins University human geneticist James F. Crow examined Neel’s research and confirmed that the number of birth defects was not significantly higher in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[272] Many members of the ABCC and its successor Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) were still looking for possible birth defects or other causes among the survivors decades later, but found no evidence that they were more common among the survivors.[268][273] …
The survivors of the bombings are called hibakusha (被爆者, Japanese pronunciation: [çibakɯ̥ɕa]), a Japanese word that literally translates to “explosion-affected people”. The Japanese government has recognized about 650,000 people as hibakusha. As of March 31, 2017, 164,621 are still alive, mostly in Japan.[276] The government of Japan recognizes about 1% of these as having illnesses caused by radiation.[277] The memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain lists of the names of the hibakusha who are known to have died since the bombings. Updated annually on the anniversaries of the bombings, as of August 2017 the memorials record the names of almost 485,000 hibakusha; 308,725 in Hiroshima[278] and 175,743 in Nagasaki.[279]

The 164,621 people still alive must by now be well into the 70s. But perhaps what would be more interesting is to look at people who were born say after September 1946 through to 1947 who were no doubt exposed to lingering high levels of radiation in the soil and food crops/meat that they ate in the early years of their lives.

Even now, the rectors are still cooled with water and some of the radioactively contaminated water comes out uncontrolled into the Pacific. Radioactivity can also be measured at the west coast of the USA. It is an area around Fukoshima so heavily contaminated that it is forever uninhabitable. At the nuclear power plant, workers are constantly working to clean up and store contaminated water in big tanks which are leaking. They can work there only for a short time, because otherwise the rate of the illness due to the radiation becomes too high. Who would say that the Fukoshima disaster has had no impact on people?

I didn’t say there had been no impact I wrote that nobody had died. You are under more danger of radiation poisoning from your dentist or doctor. Animal and plant life seems to be thriving around Chernobyl.

That radioactivity can be measured is meaningless, given how sensitive the equipment we have today is.
The very idea that anything will be radioactive forever proves that you have no idea what you are talking about.
The area around Fukushima wasn’t “uninhabitable” the day of the accident.

You know Marty “Forever” is a very long time. You may want to consult the half life of the materials released during the incident. You’ll find that radioactive material is unstable and will eventually degrade into stable elements. Usually lead. So no the area won’t be uninhabitable forever. You’re also precluding any future clean up efforts. We heard the same “Forever” comments about Chernobyl yest the exclusion zone around that site is a lush nature preserve with lots of animal life.

No country in the world could meet a goal that is unattainable. The human mastery of climate change at a global level. The goals we can meet are those involved with adaptation to, and indeed exploitation of warming, where and when it occurs.
No expenditures on (un)sustainable tech will ever mitigate climate change, because the sensible warming we create is only local or regional and is due to land usage and UHI effects. The SSTs are what rules the atmospheric temperatures for the most part. The idea that CO2 has more effect than water vapor in the atmosphere is only one of faith in the popular meme.

And now, after thousands of years we can barely cook ourselves. Indeed…just a thumb is required on ones smart phone with the appropriate installed app and you can thumb your way to dinner! Watchout when the power goes. Humanity 3 meals from chaos. Heading rapidly, hand tied and blindfold, to oblivion. Saves the planet tho aye?

Germany needs to welcome the million or so migrants that Merkel did so much to take in. They practice a 7th century religion, so it make sense to take Germany back to the dark ages to make them feel more at home.

Since the CO2 has no influence on the climate it is also completely unimportant whether and how much of it is saved.
The exit from the nuclear energy and the development of renewable energy in Germany are two completely different things. Nuclear power is expensive and dangerous. We can not and will not afford a catastrophe such as in Chernobyl and Fucoshima. Nuclear energy has previously constituted only a small part of the energy supply. (about 15% ??) The energy supply is mostly covered with coal, oil, gas, biogas and hydropower. Now about 15% of the energy is generated with wind and solar. This will save a lot of oil and gas that would otherwise be imported from Russia and the Middle East. No one in Germany is so stupid to generate the entire energy only from wind. To reach a supply exclusively with wind and sun we had to develop new technologies for storing and transporting energy.

No, the poor get social support which is sufficient to pay housing, heating and electricity. This, of course, means that the wealthy have to pay more. If you want that is socialist, but iI think that it is necessary to maintain social cohesion in a civilized country.

It’s a scam and the German people are to stupid to see it. They have become sheep. Their voting system has become so badly rigged and corrupted that voting is a waste of time. The Rothchilds rule this country and people. The people of Germany need to standup to this corrupt family and take back your country.

$780 billion isn’t billions. It’s inevitable trillions. And never ever forget that they’re spending those trillions so that there people can pay more trillions for electricity. And so China can replace them as an economic powerhouse. Stopping climate free m changing? Heh!

Perhaps just ONE country could commit to spending a VERY modest amount, say $100-200 Million, conducting some real experiments such as verification that back radiation from a cool object can transfer heat to a warmer object, testing that you can arithmetically add radiative fluxes to determine temperature via SB, and testing the effect of trace CO2 in bulk air masses. You never know the result just might be helpful.

One might also try testing the effect of Gravity on a vertical 10m column of argon to absolutely debunk the ridiculous ideas of Loschmidt and ensure the smugness of certain people who shall remain nameless. I’ll do that experiment for a mere £1,000,000.

Ivan, that is bloody dumb. Obama’s CPP was never actually put into place, and a bit of research would reveal that. Fracking resulting in cheap natural gas was the cause, and Obama and his green cronies tried to obstruct that.

Trump avoided going down the failing path of South Australia and Germany on “renewable energy”. Apart from the prices in Germany of about 3X US, one has the South Australia problem of wind and solar being unreliable.
Continuing on a failed path indicates a zealot, who does not care about either price, and therefore the economy as a whole, or reliability, ditto. The push for renewables has other motivations than economic ones, and I retain enough of my leftist past to believe that is a major consideration. There is an element of nihilism in the green movement that hates modern industrial society, and wants it to fail. Perhaps you are listening to those people, and failing to recognize their motive.

Nope, not really. I am also pro nucleur that many in the green movement bitterly oppose, but am also strongly against tracking which has been rejected in Europe over health concerns of the injected chemicals entering the water table and creating long-term health problems.

Ivan, the Obama era EPA did several studies on the health effects of fracking, and found none. The Obama administration was not friendly to the oil and gas industry, so if there was anything there, they would have been motivated to find it.
Part of the opposition to fracking is financed by Putin and Gazprom, the rest by ordinary greens reflexively opposed to most industry. “Gasland”, a mostly fictional “documentary” is typical of that genre.

I took a quick look at tracking’s health effects. In my opinion the US is in for long-term health problems from tracking and these will start to appear more in the next few decades. The studies referred to here seem to contradict your statement – and I wouldn’t dismiss this issue as just a green leftie thing:

Ivan, the EPA’s studies did not shut up the activists. Citing DeSmogBlog? Nearly Alex Jones territory. I noted she sort of admitted there was no real risk from fracking, but got into “harm” from diesel engines used on drilling rigs and the sort.
Those who want to spread panic will not respond to reality.

Well mainstream US seems to be comfortable with fracking; in the EU it hasn’t taken off mainly due to health and environmental concerns – and I don’t think it ever will. The ecomomic benefits are very clear and the downside risks less clear … fot the time being.

In Europe, opposition is due to a combination of Putin’s puppies and the green blob being their usual hysteric selves. In the US, opposition to fracking is mostly dominant in New York, where the governor, Cuomo, is sucking up to green donors in New York City mostly.

You don’t get it my friend but you grandchildren will when they are your age – will be a very different planet. Sceptics will be consigned to the dustbin of history, renewable technologies will have overtaken fossil fuels and people will look back on fracking as an ecological disaster.

One little fact that those who like to trumpet the success that Germany has had in reducing its GHG emissions relative to its 1990 levels never like to mention is that most of that reduction took place in the years immediately following reunification, during which time inefficient Soviet-era pollution belching heavy industry in former East Germany was shut down. It has virtually nothing to do with all the heavily subsidized windmills and solar panels Germany has been deploying since the 2000 passage of the Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz (Renewable Energies Law).

For 800 billion dollars, Germany has accomplished next to nothing with regard to GHG emissions reduction. Had that money instead been spent on nuclear power, even if the nuclear power plants they purchased were individually as expensive as the most expensive ones ever built, they could have completely decarbonized their electric power sector by now, and possibly even begun work on using nuclear power to drive production of carbon-neutral synthetic hydrocarbon fuels.

We have known for decades that global warming alarmism is a false crisis, because the scientific evidence shows that the sensitivity of climate to increasing atmospheric CO2 is very low. The Russian scientists are in general agreement with this position, as are the competent scientists in the Western world.

That is the science – now to the politics:

Is the Russian government encouraging and financing the global warming alarmist movement? There is significant evidence that it is doing so.

Let’s consider why the Russian government would encourage the global warming alarmists:

Russian in economically dependent on oil and gas exports to the west, especially to Western Europe. Low energy prices, recently driven by technological improvements in the fracking of gassy and oily shales, have severely harmed the Russian economy.

Two of the main pipelines supplying Europe from Russia are called “Druzhba” or “Friendship” (oil) and “Brotherhood” (natural gas). More Russian pipelines to supply Europe are underway.

Global warming alarmists, anti-fracking groups and anti-pipeline groups have all been active in Europe and North America, trying to sabotage energy developments in the Western democracies. They do so because cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of society, and by driving up the cost of energy and reducing its availability and reliability they are attempting to cripple the economies of the western democracies. This is the front line of the “New Cold War”.

Below are references that show the covert funding of green extremist groups by foreign sources, including the Russian Federation. They are of course aided by the usual gang of “useful idiots”, but we should not rule out the possibility that some of them too are being funded by foreign interests.

Regards, Allan

References:

Here are just two articles about foreign funding of phony environmental groups by the Russians and others.

The problem is that so many voters are fools who accept the blatant lies of the left, and then they pay the price. In Venezuela they are far down this dark road.

In Canada, we have elected leftist “energy imbeciles” in Ottawa, Ontario and Alberta Ontario is already paying the price, and the rest of the country is likely to follow.

Canadian heavy crude belongs in the Texas refineries and this should happen as soon as the pipeline nonsense is fixed – we can thank the watermelons for the long, costly delay in this much-needed pipeline.

Strategically, the USA is much better off with Canadian heavy crude.

Comparatively, there are no major environmental issues with pipelines, and the railway alternative has much greater environmental and safety risks – not just oil spills – witness the Lac Mégantic rail disaster, where 47 people were incinerated.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster

Haven’t read such a pile of BS in a very long time. Who paid you to write such tripe? Americans like you should focus more on what Putin is doing to your country; Europe is perfectly capable of protecting itself when it comes to V. Putin and his cronies.

Catweazle you are part of a dying breed. Sceptics have been discredited and the world is fortunately moving on towards a low carbon environment. Crawl back into your hole and pull the blanket over your head.